GM section
Chapter 5 ST corner Degree of success You shouldn't have your players thinking that rolling successes will get them to succeed. Each different roll has a degree of success based on how challenging the roll is, for instance if the roll is to do something simple (eat a cake) that would be an easy roll, whereas convincing Princess Celestia to free your friend Geoff from the moon might be challenging. As an ST you have to be able to calculate how challenging a roll is and compare it to table 5-1 which has the degree of difficulty and the target number for that difficulty. Each degree off success comes with a different amount of elaboration for instance if the player were making an easy roll that would require significantly less description than a hard or difficult roll. Going above and beyond If a PC exceeds the target number for the roll, then not only have they done the task but they have done a little extra. Sometimes this could lead towards telling your PCs a little more about the plot than you would normally give them, or it could mean adding on extra bonuses to their roll. Table 5-1 Easy 2 Moderate 3 Hard 5 Difficult 9 Tasking 15 Expert level 18 God Tier 23 Impossible 30 Critical Success and failure Critical failures are a part of many great table top rpgs and C&D is no exception. In this game critical failures are not having any successes and having 2 or more ones on the die. On a critical failure you are not only allowed to describe out the failure of the pony, but you are also encouraged to have this roll be a detriment to the party. Critical successes on the other hand require getting all successes on the maximum amount of dice. When a critical success is rolled the player has completed the task two degrees higher than they usually would have. Unlike the aside from a short while ago you treat the roll as if the roll were that higher tier roll and give them the details that you would were they making that higher roll. If you have already reach impossible level, then players are allowed to change something in game that hasn't been declared a fact. Roll offs There is more to C&D than just consulting a boring old table every time somepony rolls. Sometimes you need to compare what different ponies are doing, you have a roll off. A roll off is when two ponies roll their die and the target number is whoever rolled first's total successes. Appropriate times for a roll off *skill vs skill rolls *combat rolls *Certain rolls of random difficulty If two ponies are rolling off and are acting simultaneously the pony with the highest roll gets to perform their action and the pony who failed doesn't get to do their action. Mass chaos Let's say you have several ponies all attempting to act at once, so much so that a roll off wouldn't work, well then you make everypony roll a d6 and add their wits or hooves before (depending on whether it is a physical or social roll being made) they add the number on the die to their wits or hooves and whoever has the highest roll gets to do their action. If these actions are concurrent then whoever rolled highest goes first and then second highest acts second at about three seconds later etc. Other RPGs would call this an initiative roll, in C&D there shouldn't be too many initiative rolls and they should be used rarely if ever. Stunting Normally in games players just roll dice and naming the skill they are using. But that's boring and so the better you describe what your character is doing the more dice your players receive to their roll. You may have a maximum of a three dice added for stunting. The best way to determine how many dice a pony receives for stunting is: 1 die they describe their actions in detail, 2 they use scenery with their stunt, 3 they describe an action so cool that everypony at the table gasps. Naturally you shouldn't hand out three die stunts all the time, and they can be a bit tricky to determine on the fly, but a general rule of thumb is one or two three die stunts a session. Even if your players are doing things that you would think of as three die stunt worthy you want them to want the three die stunt, so keep it a rare commodity. Stunts don't need to take place during combat in fact most stunts are done beyond combat. If a player does something as simple as grabbing the cookies off a high shelf and they describe it well that could warrant a stunt. Be sure to always look out for stunts and constantly reward your characters with stunting dice. Chance dice If one of your PCs only has one die to perform an action, or no dice unless they are are taking penalties for health, they are allowed to roll a chance die, which means they have to roll a six on a single to succeed. If they roll a six that counts as two successes and you may now allow them to stunt if they need more successes. If they roll sixes on two stunting die they succeed and it is counted as a critical success. Difficulty successes Somethings are harder than others and some ponies are under a level of pressure that can't be absolved easily. A diff to a roll is saying that, under normal situations this roll is ranked at this tier, but you are in a situation which has made it harder on yourself. Most knacks work on adding diffs to enemies, making their rolls harder. The way a difficulty rating works is the pony rolls their regular die and the first few successes don't count. +1 diff would be something like a called shot, or bucking down a dead tree +2 diff would be making an exact shot or using a limb that has taken damage +3 diff would be using a broken wing to fly or building a device that doesn't exist Assist Dice When a situation no longer becomes a one pony job then it is up to the group to fix it. But when it comes to rolling it is a one pony job right? Wrong, when multiple ponies need to work together they can. First the ST gets a general idea of the degree of difficulty and then the players roll. They add up all their successes together and that is their final number. If the group is attempting to aid one member of the group each pony aiding makes a roll. For every pony who gets a success the pony being aided gets two automatic successes to his roll. Bits The economy of Equestria is confusing and scary, a single cherry coasts just as much as a cider and that's if the vendor is being nice. To make things more standard we're going to have to move away from the show for a little bit to determine an exact wealth. Table 5-2 2-4 bits -- average cost of food (a normal lunch) 4- 11 bits -- gourmet food 40 bits -- a cart 66 bits – shack 1000 bits – house 2000 bits – barn 8000 bits – farm Inventory generally it is assumed that most ponies can have whatever they need whenever they are at home. When a pony is out adventuring they can only carry so much. It is assumed they have a saddle which could carry five days worth of food and one or two other objects. Creating magic items There are a few magic items in Equestria are magical, like the elements of harmony. There are three things that you need to keep in mind for making an item: 1. What it does 2. How to activate it 3. How it can fail What it does? This could be as simple as making a party in a room. It could be as big as being able to change the minds of enemies. Activating an item can be as simple as hitting it with some hooves. It could also need several ponies to get together to make some magic stones glow. How it can fail. Not everything works and sometimes they have a bad kick back. This could mean something as small as taking some mental stress because you just don't know what went wrong. It could explode in your ponies face. It is important to have some idea of what the item does before you unleash it on your party. Laughter table How well do other ponies like you? Determining how well ponies like one another can be found on the laughter table. Of course the laughter table is optional but it helps with role playing out certain knacks. Table 5-3 Loves, loves, loves you Likes you Doesn't hate you Doesn't know you doesn't like you Hates you Despises you It should be more difficult for a pony to shift positions when they are at the lower or higher positions of the chart. For instance a pony that loves, loves, loves you might not shift to liking you without something happening. NPCs NPCs or Non Player Characters are integral to the game. Making NPCs on the fly can be a challenge and so it is assumed that you have made a few before hand. If you haven't here are a few in this book. Making an NPC on the fly Even if you haven't prepared an NPC before hand you can make one on the fly fairly quickly. 1. determine how powerful your party is 2. determine how many NPCs you're throwing up against them 3. concentrate on the skill challenge you are throwing up against your party 4. Choose two or three knacks appropriate to the situation 5. Use Generic HP/ Soak First look at what rank your party is, when your making your NPC you need to make sure they aren't too powerful. You should focus on how many dice you're rolling, with enough dice you can challenge without retiring. Table 5-3 appropriate amount of dice per rank assuming 2-3 npcs Rank 1 3-5 dice Rank 2 5-7 dice Rank 3 8-10 dice Rank 4 11-15 dice Also, the amount of dice depends on how many NPCs you're throwing up against them table 5-3 assumes you are throwing two to three enemies against the ponies. If you only want to throw one, increase the number of dice so that way the NPC could, potentially, two hit the weakest member of your party with that skill. You also need to focus on what skill challenge you're throwing your party up against. If this is meant to be a challenge of wits your NPC should have high wits, but if they get physically attacked you should be prepared. If your NPC has to move out of their comfort zone half their dice or worse for any other skill. Have the knack chapter and pick out two or three that are appropriate for the situation. If you're in a battle of wits, choose two knacks that have to do with mentals. It is assumed that the NPC will have more knacks so be prepared to have two more at the ready depending on what rank your party is. The Average HP of a PC is 13 and the average soak is 3. Non Pony NPCs Not everyone in equestria is a pony. There are Hydra, Griffons, Draconequii, and many more. A few of these creatures have NPCs in this book. Generally you shouldn't make a non pony NPC on the fly just so that you don't accidentally make an OP character outside of the rules. Improving your party When you've finished a session you'll want to dish out bonus friendship points for finishing a session. You'll want to keep a few things in mind when it comes to giving out these friendship points. First if you want to think about how quick you want the pace of your game. If you want your game slowly paces (it's a long running game) you might want 2-3 points at the end. A moderately paced game will have 4-7 at the end of a session. A fast paced game will end with 7-10 bonus fp. Secondly you want to think about how well your group did for that session, remember fp are how you show your approval over your group. If they role played well, got through lots of story, and didn't get overly distracted you might want to give them a bit more fp than usual. If they did the opposite give them less fp. If they complain tell them to shut up and they can ST if they want. Thirdly you want to think about how many of them are going to use this to improve their character. If your group mainly uses fp on knacks, that's fine but you don't want to be dishing out tonnes of fp to players who are going to spend it on an aspect of the game that doesn't go with your story. In these situations you might want to slowly start giving less bonus fp at the end of a session, just enough so they can still use their knacks, but not so much so that they will ruin your game. Experience You need to give your party experience as you go along with the game. There are three methods for experience gain, the slow way, the fast way, and the extra fast way. Table 5-4 2-3 per session = slow 4-7 per session = fast 7-10 per session = super fast Choosing the slow way would work for longer running games. Whereas super fast would work for games that have a clear ending in the near future. Fast games should be used for GMs who want a long running game but want their players to have extraordinary powers without spending so much time in game.